镇静剂? Syringe?

[Lu]

Another translation question. A girl is locked up in a room by her older sister, who claims the girl is mad and wants a doctor to sedate her:

“医生，您快给她打上镇静剂吧，我要支撑不住了! ”’

医生点点头，迅速从医药箱里拿出了针剂。[The girl protests.] 医生显然没有相信她的话，在她还嚷着的时候，就抓起她的手臂，把镇静剂打了进去。

The girl is kept sedated until one day she sees an opportunity to escape. She tells her story:

“终于有一天，镇静剂还没有给我打进去，外面就有人敲门，姐姐就把我锁起来去开门一那个时候已经是她给我打针了，医生根本就不来了。她慌着去看门，把镇静剂放在了我的床头。我当时恰好醒着，虽然力气没有多少，但是头脑还算明白。我觉得机会终于来了。我就把镇静剂里面的药剂推出来，倒在了床底下。然后我把冷在桌上的凉开水杯拿了起来，把里面的水小心地倒入针剂里，擦干净，放回原处。”

 

I am not sure what exactly the words mean here. There is clearly a syringe involved, but 镇静剂 really does not mean 'syringe', as far as I can tell, even though it seems that is how it is used here. Does anyone know what is going on with that?

 

And what exactly does she do when she 把镇静剂里面的药剂推出来, and what does she 倒在了床底下, and what does she 倒入 the water into? (Into the syringe after all?)

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who does understand and can shed some light on this.

[roddy]

Yeah, it's a sedative in a syringe. 把镇静剂打了进去 would be "he injected the sedative", I guess. 

Later, she squirts the sedative out of the syringe under the bed so it can't be seen, then fills it up with water so the sister won't notice the trick. 

[Lu]

I guess what I find strange is that she 把镇静剂里面的药剂推出来 -> 'squirts the medicine out of the sedative', which only makes sense to me if I read 镇静剂 as 'syringe', which it really doesn't mean. And I thought 倒 is 'pour' where here is it used rather as 'let flow, let spill'. And then when she 倒入s the water I would expect a word like 拉, when it is about getting something into a syringe. Not sure if the author was just confused about how syringes work or if I am missing something. Probably the latter.

[roddy]

Yeah. I quite often wish I was editing things rather than translating them, but then I remember I'd probably be getting paid a lot less...

[Tomsima]

i read the first 倒 as pour out - spill is unintentional, or perhaps emphasises a mess has been made, like 濺. But shes being discrete and careful in squirting the sedative out under the bed, so its the same 倒 as in 倒出. It might be that the author doesnt want to use 出 because right before that they've used 退出來? 

 

Interesting seeing 劑 used like this. I guess 劑 can be used as -er after medical preparations to emphasise its role as an agent, seen in the English, 'tranquiliser', as in 'the tranquiliser took effect', but also 'he shot the elephant with a tranquiliser' (the thing that tranquilises can be the medicine itself or the gun it is fired from).

 

Am I right in thinking this is from 十愛？

[Lu]

Yes, it's from 十爱. You can probably find the full (very dramatic) story online with very little googling ?

 

Thanks for your thoughts. I am still a bit confused by seeing 剂 used like this, but I guess I will just translate it as 'syringe' since that way the whole paragraph makes sense.